Creator / George Carlin

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George Denis Patrick Carlin (May 12, 1937 — June 22, 2008) was an American comedian who made a permanent name for himself in the annals of comedy, mostly for making funny all the things that usually make people go Dude, Not Funny!

After a failed stint in the U.S. Air Force and a brief time in radio and news he mostly became a lifelong comedian, initially partnering up with writer/comedian Jack Burns. After the two split in 1962* their sole album, which was recorded in 1960, didn't see release until 1963, Carlin went solo with mostly family-friendly material to great success, but he eventually became disenchanted with his clean-cut image and entered the 1970s as a new comedian. A DIRTY COMEDIAN. That said, he also played "Mr. Conductor" on Shining Time Station (a children's show), as well as a stint as the Narrator, so he wasn't completely Child Unfriendly.note And besides, a stand-up comedian is just a storyteller who makes you laugh. He is also well known for playing Rufus in the Bill & Ted movies and Cardinal Glick in Dogma (which Kevin Smith put him in and which he agreed to appear in mostly so that they could make fun of "the kind of asshole who'd bless his golf clubs for a better game"). Over the course of his life he acted in some fourteen odd films in total, in addition to numerous television appearances spanning everything from The Simpsons to Welcome Back, Kotter and several commercials. He also hosted Saturday Night Live's premiere episode on October 11th, 1975 note and came back nine years later in 1984 on November 10th — the inversion of October 11th — to host again.

His comedy was focused on accentuating the negative, and poked much fun at the Logical Fallacies aspects of American culture, especially regarding politics and religion. He also made jokes about subjects usually considered unfunny, such as torture, rape, genocide, etc. This was actually done on purpose, as he later Lampshaded, to prove that we modern humans weren't much different from our supposedly more barbaric progenitors. That is, he wanted to show that if those things were entertaining then, they would be now - and, judging by the audience's laughter, they were.

Despite dropping Cluster F Bombs a lot, he was a very erudite man, who would peruse the media and the Internet for ideas for his comedy, even encouraging people to do the same for their own cultural and educational benefit. Combined with his disgust for the over insulation of our society from the harshness of reality and its own paranoias over its most minor social issues, one could possibly take his Refuge in Audacity/vulgarity laden humor as an attempt to broaden social awareness.

He also changed the FCC's rules on obscenity. After the "Seven Dirty Words You Can Never Say on Television" routine, it's amusing to note that the FCC has more or less modified its policies towards the times when obscenity can be put on the airwaves and what is considered child unsafe around the time of this skit. He is also indirectly responsible for Pay-per-View, which was the logical conclusion on making audiences of obscene content self selective.

In his later years, he became more caustic and crude (partially due to relaxed social standards and partially due to age), and he struggled repeatedly with alcohol and vicodin addictions.

He died of heart failure in 2008, just a month after his 71st birthday. He was given several awards both during his life and posthumously for his contributions to comedy. Shortly after his death, in a poll taken from nearly 5000 of his fellow stand-up comedians, he was voted the second funniest stand-up comedian of all time. The comedian who beat him for the title? Richard Pryor.

A sort-ofbiography (obviously written before his death) of Carlin was released on November 10th, 2009, which Carlin wrote with the assistance of Tony Hendra, one of the original writers of the National Lampoon magazine. After Carlin's death, Hendra approached the late comedian's family with his plans for the book. The audio version was narrated by George's brother Patrick, who is an author himself, and sounds so much like George, it's scary.

As he was well-known for his great writing, expect to find many quotes taken directly from the man himself (and many that weren't).

"An incomplete list of impolite tropes":

Abusive Parents: His father. Though his father left before he could lay any abuse on George, his mother and older brother Patrick got the brunt of it.

Acceptable Targets: invoked Everyone and everything that ever existed in the history of forever (or, at least in his words, anyone who takes themselves a little bit too seriously), with Organized Religion and the American government being his two favorites. In the intro to Brain Droppings, one of his books, he says that he hates every single Group, religion (except for the music) and ideal in the world; the fact that he tends to have more material on one or another is simply a factor of that one group making itself more of a target.

George Carlin: If you live on this planet, you're guilty, period, fuck you, end of report, next case! ... Your birth certificate is proof of guilt!

George: I don't vote, because I firmly believe that if you vote, you have no right to complain. I know some people like to twist that around and say, "If you don't vote, you have no right to complain." But where's the logic in that? Think it through: If you vote, and you elect dishonest, incompetent politicians, and you screw things up, then you're responsible for what they've done. You voted them in. You caused the problem. You have no right to complain. I, on the other hand, who did not vote — who, in fact, did not even leave the house on Election Day — am in no way responsible for what these politicians have done and have every right to complain about the mess you created. Which I had nothing to do with. Why can't people see that?

Aggressive Categorism: Carlin love to do this in his rants. For comedic effect, of course. He took it so far as to say "Fuck everybody, now that I think of it. Sometimes in comedy, you have to generalize."

Also his theory about how Bill Clinton got re-elected: Unlike Dole, Clinton told people how full of bullshit he was, and the people voted for him because "at least he's honest about being completely full of shit!"

Baby Factory: Carlin finds it offensive. He calls it "pumping out a unit".

George Carlin: I also happen to like it when feminists attack these fatass housewives who think there's nothing more to life that sitting home on the telephone, drinking coffee, watching TV and pumping out a baby every nine months. P-poom, p-poom, p-poom, p-poom, p-poom... will seven be enough, Bob? ... p-poom, p-poom.

Badass Beard: One of his books also gave tips on how to maintain one too.

"Here's my beard, ain't it weird? Don't be skeered, it's just a beard. People were thrown off by that word, beard. Not American-sounding. Beard. Lenin had a beard. Gabby Hayes had whiskers."

Badass Grandpa: Became one. He was a generally kind and considerate man in his personal life, but anyone who got on his bad side learned to regret it.

Also went after white guys who shaved their heads. "If you wanna be bald, do what I did: wait a while!"

Baseball and Football: This is the subject and title of one of his more famous routines.

Batter Up: He once implicitly threatened to bash his daughter's abusive boyfriend's head in with a bat.

This is also how he claims Joe Pesci solved his problem regarding a neighbor's noisy dog, thus doing a better job than God in the problem-solving department.

Berserk Button: Many things, but chief among them were idiocy and ignorance, which would often lead to seemingly Unstoppable Rage directed towards the world around him. Some of his most enduring material comes from those moments. He also didn't take heckling well.

"WELL, I GET PISSED, GOD DAMN IT!!!"

One of his routines was devoted entirely to telling a heckler off, in the most jaw droppingly brutal way possible.

"So fuck you and your sister and your wife, if you got a kid, I hope your fucking kid dies in a car fire! How do you like that, you stupid cocksucker?! Shut the fuck up and get the fuck outta here!" Do notfuck with Carlin.

When he was fired from Las Vegas after saying "ass" and "shit" in front of a crowd full of golfers, he developed a lifelong hatred for golf. At least three of his albums have included the line "Have you ever watched golf on TV? It's like watching flies fuck." It culminated in the "Golf Courses for the Homeless" routine, wherein he suggests using the land on golf courses for low-cost housing.

He touched on this in his "Shoot" routine from FM & AM.

"I got fired from a show in Las Vegas at the Frontier Hotel for saying 'shit'. In a town where the big game is called Craps. ...Never made sense to me."

The self-esteem movement, which he mocked from its beginning until his death.

"I will bet you anything that while you're watching a quiet one, a noisy one will FUCKING KILL YOU! Suppose you're in a bar and one guy's sittin' over on the side, readin' a book, not bothering anybody, another guy's standing up front with a machete, bangin' it on the bar, sayin' 'I'LL KILL THE NEXT MOTHERFUCKER WHO COMES IN HERE!' Who ya gonna watch? You're goddamn right."

Black Comedy: A master. Arguably one of the best examples is his material on suicide in Life is Worth Losing, where he monologues as though he were planning to kill himself and discussed when, where and how to do it—and it was hilarious. The suicide note for example.

"Suppose the Bible they hand you to swear on is upside-down. Or backward. Or both. And you swear to tell the truth on an upside-down backward Bible. Would that count? Suppose the Bible they hand you is an old Bible and half the pages are missing. Suppose all they have is a Chinese Bible in an American court. Or a Braille Bible and you're not blind. Suppose they hand you an upside-down, backward, Chinese Braille Bible with half the pages missing!"

Breakup Breakout: Though Jack Burns did have a successful career post-split, Carlin went into legend territory.

Brick Joke: An uncommon but funny occurrence. In an early skit, two sisters were to be reunited on a Truth or Consequences-type skit, but "you blew the question so we sent your sister back to Maine!" Then later that sister appeared on a Queen for a Day-like show and referenced the first skit.

And demonstrating just how truly awesome the man was, he accomplished this posthumously, with a little help from NPR of all places. One of Carlin's routines was about the appropriate time to remove someone's name from your address book after they've died, with it coming out to six months. Six months after he dies, cue a short NPR story on the routine... and a final farewell.

The guy in the Grateful Dead t-shirt and the "Fuck you!" hat from "Airline Announcements."

After his Rape as Comedy skit (seen below), he goes into a rant on feminism, though he agrees with feminism on its basic point on how men have systematically abused women and pretty much everything else: "Mother Earth, raped again. 'Hey, she was askin' for it.'"

Brooklyn Rage: Grew up in "White Harlem" which was called such because it sounded cooler than Morningside Heights. He also mentioned his "New York credentials" on Complaints and Grievances:

"I was born on this island, Manhattan Island, therefore I was born in New York City, New York county, and New York state. City, county, and state. And on top of that, I was born in New York Hospital...but here's the thing most of you don't know. Know where I was conceived? Rockaway Beach."

On the other hand, he has no problem with putting it on your answering machine message.

"Never mind that stuff, 'I'm away from my desk'; if you had to take a shit, say so. Just say, 'Hi, this is Mary Louise. I had the Mexican jalapeño bean chili dip and I washed it down with a gallon of gin; I'll be in and out all day.'"

"And while all this is going on, Canada burns to the ground, but nobody notices."

Captain Ersatz: Carlin from the 90's on became the epitome of the "angry comic". In The Simpsons, when Krusty became one, he adopted the same ponytail and attitude as Carlin.

Chalk Outline: There's one on the cover of his 1977 album On the Road with George standing over it.

Cerebus Syndrome: His act from the 1970s and early 1980s was much Lighter and Softer — less angry, a bit less vulgar, and certainly less political — than his act from about '87 on.

Cloudcuckoolander: Though more present in his earlier stand-ups up to the 80's. It gets overshadowed by his increasingly abrasive persona. Though even then he encourages parents allow kids today to be more like this trope by daydreaming instead of giving an abundance of after-school activities.

Fuck you. Fuck you, you﻿ Fuck. Fuck you, you Fuck; who the Fuck do you think you're Fucking with? Some kind of Fuckhead? Fuck you. Who the Fuck you think you're Fucking with, me? Don't Fuck with me! I will Fuck you over. You Fuck with me, you will get Fucked, you Fuck! Don't Fuck with me; I'm the Fucker! Don't Fuck with the Fucker!"

One of this classic bits was exchanging "kill" with "fuck" in "Again".

The "Incomplete Listnote Incomplete because people always come up after the show saying things like "Hey! You forgot Needledick, the Bugfucker!" of Impolite Words", which adds well over a hundred words and counting to the original list.

Men are terrified that their pricks are inadequate and so they have to compete with one another to feel better about themselves and since war is the ultimate competition, basically men are killing each other in order to improve their self-esteem. You do not have to be a historian or political scientist to see the "bigger dick foreign policy theory" at work. It sounds like this: What? They have bigger dicks?! BOMB THEM! And off course the bombs and the rockets and the bullets are all shaped like dicks. It is a subconscious need to project the penis into other peoples' affairs. It is called FUCKING WITH PEOPLE!

Conspiracy Theorist: Definitely not one of those out-there people, but he had very interesting things to say. At the very least, he believed the imbalance of power in the United States and the world as a whole as something planned, political participation by citizens as simple appeasement, technological innovation as useless and counterproductive, and insinuated that all of that was somehow consciously done by powerful people for nefarious purposes, namely keeping everyone pacified and stupid in order to exploit them, rather than believing it just developed as a result of global capitalism.

Creepy Monotone: Often part of his punchline delivery, especially in the early years. On one of his albums the audience actually jumps (some of them, anyway) at the way he says the word "beard", and he works it into the routine.

Lenin had a beard. Gabby Hayes had whiskers.

Cultural Cringe: This American man had no love at all for the worst behaviors of Americans. He still said he loved America, and wouldn't have it any other place or time. I suppose he just liked his first-row ticket to a fairly busy act of the human freak show.

Carlin: Americans love to eat. They are fatally attracted to the slow-death of fast food. Hot dogs, corn dogs, triple bacon cheeseburgers, deep-fried butter dipped in pork fat and cheese-whiz, mayonnaise-soaked barbecue, mozzarella patty melts. Americans will eat anything. Anything. ANYTHING. Shit, if you were selling fried raccoons assholes on a stick, Americans would buy them and eat them! Especially if you were to dip them in butter and put a little salsa on them!

Déjà Vu: He had a bit on what he called "Vuja De," a sensation that what is going on has never happened before.

I drive kinda recklessly, I take a lot of chances, I never repair my vehicles, and I don't believe in traffic laws. So, I tend to have quite a high number of traffic accidents.

Drugs Are Good: In his autobiography he praises cannabis, LSD, and mescaline for their positive effects on his life.

Drugs Are Bad: But he condemns opiates and cocaine for the damage they did to his health and his wallet.

Dude, Not Funny!: Invoked. The man made a career of subverting this. For example, proving that rape could be funny by introducing us to the mental image of Porky Pig raping Elmer Fudd. Either the sheer absurdity of the idea makes you laugh, or your childhood memories will be shattered.

Early Installment Weirdness: Started out as one half of a comedy duo with Jack Burns (though he soon became a solo act). He mostly wore a suit and tie, was clean-shaven, short-haired, well-groomed and a lot less dirty. He did have a few classic routines in the early days such as "Al Sleet, the Hippie-Dippie Weatherman" and "The Indian Staff Sergeant". As The '60s came to a close, he had had it with the clean-cut facade he had to put out and started The '70s with the persona we know today.

Equal-Opportunity Offender: In his own words, "[F]uck everybody, now that I think of it[...]sometimes in comedy, you have to generalize." Though the general rule was that he went after anybody whom he felt took themselves too seriously. One routine sees him simultaneously mocking both rape apologists and feminists.

As long as I'm being a complete pig up here, let me ask you guys a question. Are you ever able to watch a woman eating a banana and NOT think about a blowjob? I can't do it. And I know why: I'm a sick, evil fuck! I know that! I accept that! But I can't do it! Eating a banana, eating a pickle, licking on an ice cream cone. I'm thinking to myself "LOOK AT THE TONGUE ON HER! WOW!" So ladies, be careful when you're standing out in front of that Häagen-Dazs. 'Cause God damn it, we're watching. And God damn it, we're thinking!

Erudite Stoner: Carlin was very intelligent and said lots of interesting bits of wisdom, but there's no doubt as to what some of his hobbies included.

Blatantly exposed in his ''Last Words' autobiography, where it's pretty much stated that whilst pot potentially helped his career and partially fashioned him into the comic he'd become famous as, there were some terrible downsides. As Carlin once said in an interview with Jon Stewart, drugs were a lot of pleasure and very little pain when he first started taking them. Towards the end of his life, that inverted to a lot of pain and little pleasure.

"Americans love to eat. They are fatally attracted to the slow-death of fast food. Hot dogs, corn dogs, triple bacon cheeseburgers, deep-fried, butter-dipped in pork fat and cheese-whiz, mayonnaise, soaked barbecue, mozzarella patty melts. Americans will eat anything. Anything. ANYTHING. Shit, if you were selling fried raccoons assholes on a stick, Americans would buy them and eat them! Especially if you were to dip them in butter and put a little salsa on them!"

Fighting Irish: He was of Irish descent and joked that he was an Irish catholic until "He reached the age of reason".

"I used to be Irish Catholic, now I'm an American. You know, you grow..."

For the Evulz: When talking about the Catholic doctrine of sins of intention in one of his stand-ups, notably.

"You could wake up one morning and say to yourself, 'I think I'm going to go down to 27th street today and commit myself a mortal sin!' Save the bus-fare, man! You did it!"

Also

"Isn't there a part of you that, deep down, just hopes everything gets worse?"

Fridge Logic: invoked Or as he calls it in Carlin On Campus — "These are the kinds of things I think of when I'm home alone and the television is broken."

"In restaurants where they serve frog's legs...what do they do with the rest of the frog? Do they just throw it away? You never see frog torsos on the menu, they throw them away! Could you imagine a barrel full of frog bodies?"

"If you're going to have a rain dance, wouldn't you have to have rain dance practice? And what I'm wondering is, does it rain during practice? Because if it doesn't, how do you know if you have it right? And if it does, why bother with the dance in the first place? Need a little water? Call practice!"

"We have flamethrowers, and what this indicates to me is that at some point someone said to himself "Gee, I'd sure like to set those people on fire over there, but I'm way too far away to get the job done. If only I had something to throw flame on them". And it might have ended there but he mentioned it to his friend, his friend who was good with tools, heh, and about a month later he came back, "Hey, quite a concept!" FWOOOSH."

And don't even get him started on airports.

Fuck Politeness, I'm an Old Fuck!: To paraphrase from It's Bad For Ya: advantages of getting old include being able to chalk up any mental slip to old age, ability to get out of social obligations by claiming to be tired, never having to carry one's bags again.

His discussion of his health problems, comparing them to those of his friend Richard Pryor.

"An update on the comedian health sweepstakes. I currently lead Richard Pryor in heart attacks 2 to 1. But Richard still leads me 1 to nothing in burning yourself up. See, it happened like this: first Richard had a heart attack, then I had a heart attack. Then Richard burned himself up, and I said, 'Fuck that. I'm having another heart attack!"

Girl-on-Girl Is Hot: From the part about tollbooths in the section "New Jersey and License Plates" in "More Stuff About Cars and Driving" from his 1988 album What Am I Doing In New Jersey?:

"Tell them, 'I don't have any change, I spent all my money on pussy and beer.' That'll wake 'em up. Especially if you're a woman!"

Glurge: invoked Absolutely hated this kind of sentiment and was very pissed in later years when a number of saccharine online essays were being attributed to him, some of which even lamented the decline of prayer in American culture. This makes one wonder if said attributors even knew who Carlin was.

God Is Evil: A lot of his humor was based around this. After he left the Catholic Church, he began deconstructing a lot of their teachings and the mystique around God in general.

A Good Name for a Rock Band: In one of his books he provided a whole list of these, among them "Warts, Waffles, and Walter", "The Stillborn", and "This Band Needs Practice".

Grammar Nazi: Well, really more of an entire language Nazi, really. Carlin was an avid scholar of etymology and crafted a lot of his humor in later routines on the misuse and misunderstanding of common slangs and phrases being used, and disgust over words being dumbed down and losing their intensity and meaning under jargon.

"Place the turkey in a pre-heated oven! It's ridiculous! There are only two states an oven can possibly exist in, heated or un-heated!"

Groin Attack: He once said that "groin" is the sound people make when they get struck in that area.

Growing The Ponytail: invoked Carlin himself considered his two specials, '90's "Doin' It Again" and '92's "Jammin' In New York" to be this, as he felt these were the first special where his material really clicked and he truly connected with the audience. Leading up to this his skits were relying less on character-based comedy and more on jokes about society and the misuse of language. Afterwards his material became much more cynical and dark compared to before.

In the album notes for "Back In Town", the follow up to "Jammin' In New York", Carlin notes that he feels it's his best stuff yet; "I've finally learned how to do this shit right."

Hair-Trigger Temper: His last few years, where his stage persona became increasingly bitter and even more hilarious. Surprisingly, he was a calm, patient and almost compassionate fellow in Real Life.

Happily Married: Twice. His marriage to his first wife Brenda lasted 36 years (until her death from liver cancer). He met his second wife Sally a few months after but was hesitant to act on his feelings so soon after Brenda's death. They eventually married the next year, and the marriage lasted until his death.

"Remember when we were in the sixth grade and we used to laugh at everything? 'And the cock crowed three times...' 'Hey! It's in the Bible!' Remember the first time you heard of a cockfight? 'No, it's not that, man!'"

Hellhole Prison: A "suggestion" he had for balancing the budget was to take all the violent criminals, sex offenders, drug users (only after 15 strikes), and the criminally insane and throw them in a gigantic prison made up of four states. And all their "vices" would be met in-prison by each other and by supplies air dropped in.

Hidden Depths: Despite what people expect of a staunch atheist like Carlin, he knew the Bible backwards and forwards. His final lines in his final show It's Bad For Ya included Proverbs. He also acknowledged there was a chance that people might survive death in a non-corporeal form, but he doubted it.

Hilarious in Hindsight: Invoked. A big part of his material, though not as much in later shows, was to "remind you of things you already know, but forgot to laugh at the first time they happened".

George Carlin: We come from that northern European, basically the northern European genes, the blue eyes. Those blue eyes. Boy everybody in the world learned real quick, didn't they? When those blue eyes sail out of the north, you better nail everything down. Nail it down, strap it down, or they'll grab it. If they can’t take it home, they'll burn it. If they can't burn it, they'll fuck it.

"I've got an idea for the perfect name for a gay bar: 'The Mouthful.' Isn't that great? It's a double pun! Well god damn it, YOU didn't think of it! Even if you're not gay, step inside...have a cocktail! Or a high ball!"

Inherently Funny Word: Carlin loved these, like "kumquat" and "dingleberries", the latter of which he claimed sounded "Christmas-y".

The Irish Diaspora: Averted. Carlin is Irish (formerly Irish Catholic, but he gave up being Catholic at age 3), and revels in it.

Irish priests are included when he's talking about his school days, notably on the album Class Clown.

It's a Small Net After All: Subverted. Unlike most people of his age, George was a big advocate of computers as a more efficient way of storing information, including composing his own material on them and using the internet for research. His later television specials even namecheck popular sites.

On the other hand, one of his "short takes" from his book Brain Droppings says that when people ask him if he has an e-mail address, he tells them eatshit@fuckyou.com/upyourass, and this seems never to fail to get the point across to them.

Jade-Colored Glasses: While he was always crude and had fun poking at cultural taboos for satire, it was fairly light-hearted at first, then his material became much darker as his career continued.

Jerk with a Heart of Gold: He wore the stage persona of a raunchy, angry, cussing ball of fury, but it was just a Jerkass Façade: off-stage Carlin was often regarded as a friendly, quiet man. In an interview, he noted that if he was really as bitter and angry as he acted on-stage, he probably would have killed himself years ago. Instead, his act gave him a chance to vent on-stage and acted as a catharsis that made him feel good about doing it.

When doing his work for Shining Time Station, he wasn't used to performing without an audience, as he had to record his narrations in a recording booth. The directors placed a teddy bear on a stool in the booth with him so he could narrate to it as his "audience." He was also close friends with producer Britt Alcroft for many years after.

While at an airport, he was met with a young man confused at seeing Mr. Conductor in the real world. Rather than disillusion him by telling him that Mr. Conductor didn't exist, he patiently explained that he was "on vacation" from the magical island.

He genuinely loved his wife, Brenda, and felt a lot of guilt about how he acted during most of his daughter's childhood.

[about traffic accidents]: Well of course they're hurt - LOOK AT ALL THE BLOOD! You just ran over them with a ton and a half of STEEL!!!

[about why men go to war - The Bigger Dick Theory]: What? They have bigger dicks? BOMB THEM!!!

[about God]: He loves you... he loves you and He NEEDS MONEY!!! He ALWAYS NEEDS MONEY!

[about life support]: I hate that macho bullshit posturing. 'If I'm like a vegetable, pull the plug on me.' FUCK YOU, LEAVE MY PLUG ALONE!!! You get an extension cord for MY plug! ...Vegetable shit, I don't care if I look like an artichoke! SAAAAAAVE MY ass!

[about people who won't shut up] You're searching through your mind for something diplomatic and tactful and graceful that you can say to help end the conversation, but all I can ever come up with is BLOW IT OUT YOUR ASS! BLOW IT OUT YOUR ASS!! BLOW IT OUT YOUR ASS!!! BLOW IT OUT YOUR ASS... BLOW IT OUT YOUR ASS!!! [Note: In the video release, they replaced it with "SHUT THE FUCK UP! SHUT THE FUCK UP! SHUT THE FUCK UP! SHUT THE FUCK UP!!!".]

Lighter and Softer: Contrasting two different things, like in his "Baseball vs. Football" sketch, to make one appear more wholesome.

Football is played in a stadium, often called a colliseum, on a gridiron. Baseball is played on a diamond, in a park. Let's all go to the park!

There was also his famous role as Rufus in Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure and the sequel, where he was like this, compared to his other work. (He didn't cuss even once.)

And of course, again, he was Mr. Conductor. Although that was an invocation—he wanted to show everyone something unexpected from him. (In his actual life, he seems to have been a kind man, albeit one who didn't much care for bullshit.)

His material in the 70s compared to his material from the 90s and later was much lighter in tone.

Mean Character, Nice Actor: A classic case, as incredibly cynical, bitter and hateful his material got in the later years, he was a very nice and gentle man and led a pretty good life. He even admitted he relished the chance to get up onstage and rip society to shreds as a kind of shared catharsis with his audience, and in his autobiography states if he was anywhere near as bitter and misanthropic as his stage persona, he would have shot himself years ago.

Mind Screw: The opening of the appropriately named special Playin' With Your Head. In the opening skit, which is in black and white, Carlin plays Mike Holder, a man with an unspecified job who is delivered lunch by an unfamiliar delivery man. He ends up fleeing when the man turns out to be working with two other men implied to be former partners with Holder and now chasing him to steal an envelope in his possession. Arriving at the theater they try to talk him into handing the envelope over, but Holder declares they wouldn't know what to do with it, and walks through a door onto the stage ignoring their warnings. Suddenly he's in stage attire and it's in color, and Carlin does his stand-up. When he's done he goes back out, his clothing and the color change back, and he tears the envelope up to the sneers of the three men who leave while the stage staff applaud his performance. You guess is as good as ours as to what the hell was going on in the story of the skit, particularly the envelope since they never reveal what's inside.

In another routine he says that if he had to pick what term he prefers people to use for whites it would be "blue-eyed devil" because it sounds so romantic and tangy.

He used the word in question at least once, albeit sarcastically, during a routine about how the United States was "founded by slave owners who told us all 'men are created equal'... except for Indians and niggers and women!"

Perhaps the only white comedian ever to have black people in the audience applauding his use of the N-word, because he deconstructed it and used it to poke fun at the society that oppressed non-whites.

Name One: "Name six ways we're better than chickens!" (Beat) "See, nobody can do it!"

Not In My Back Yard: Once pointed out how those people who say "Build more prisons" always follow it with "But not here," adding "If someone breaks out of prison, what do you think they are going to do, hang around. That's the whole point of breaking out of prison, to get as far away from it as you can."

Officer O'Hara: Does an imitation of an Irish cop on Occupation: Foole.

Once an Episode: Carlin's signature curtsy, which he did after every routine in his show until his balance wasn't good enough anymore to perform it.

Only Sane Fuck: He often came across as the only person intelligent enough not just to notice the serious problems with the world, but be able to articulate them in humorous ways.

Oxymoronic Being: Not really, but he popularized a type of humor where two terms are presented as oxymoronic for rhetorical effect (which is not a true oxymoron). Examples he himself used include "military intelligence", "freedom fighters"note Carlin: If crime-fighters fight crime and firefighters fight fires, what do freedom fighters fight?, "business ethics". (Carlin didn't actually invent this type of humor - William Frank Buckley, Jr is credited with that - but he likely popularized it).

Papa Wolf: As he recounted in Last Words, he learned that a boy was abusing his daughter and had gotten her pregnant. George ordered the boy's father to keep the boy away from his daughter. When the boy showed up again anyway, all George had to do was come out wielding a baseball bat before he got the message.

The Perfectionist: He was known to workshop his routines excessively in-between his famed HBO specials, going on tour to smaller venues to try out new routines (resulting in several fans being disappointed by these sub-par "rough drafts") so that, come the specials, every joke would be fine-tuned into a flawless performance with little in the way of ad-libbing.

Pet the Dog: A recurring motif in his earlier routines was that he loved dogs, and he often made cracks about how much fun they could be, as well as stories about his own dog, Tippy.

He eulogized Tippy in Doin' It Again. At the end of the show, he introduced his new dog: "This is Moe! Moe says 'hello'!"

Phallic Weapon: From "Rockets and Penises in the Persian Gulf," from 1992's Jammin' in New York:

Planet of Hats: One of Carlin's bits. His desire: making a religion that was hats optional, seeing as the rules on the subject made no sense from religion to religion.

Pop-Cultured Badass: In a verbal sense. He was VERY in tune with popular culture, and had no problem or fear in calling out all the ills in popular society and the people responsible.

Precision F-Strike: He had a gift for inserting profanity in some of his skits for maximum impact.

Raised Catholic: "I used to be Irish Catholic, now I'm American." Most of the jokes in Class Clown are about his time of being one in a Catholic high school.

Retirony: The last chapter of his autobiography indicated that he had enough notes to write a Broadway play or musical based on his life, entitled "New York Boy". Unfortunately, his autobiography was released posthumously.

Running Gag: Well, not so much 'gag' as he tended toward stock phrases for some of his specials to punctuate his jokes.

"...and that seems to hold 'em for about a half an hour."

"...I sense I've gone too far."

"Well, some people need practical advice!"

"WELL I GET PISSED GODDAMMIT!"

Russian Reversal: Some of the biggest laughs from his 1970s albums came from simply inverting the words in a phrase.

(From Seven Dirty Words, talking about words that are only dirty some of the time) "Prick. It's okay to say if it happens to your finger. Yes, you can prick your finger, but don't finger your prick."

Seven Dirty Words: The Trope Namer, which has aged surprisingly well. Still, since he first did the routine, one of the seven words, "piss", has become quite acceptable on broadcast television (though it depends on the context; Carlin even said, "It's acceptable to say 'I'm getting pissed off but not 'I'm getting pissed on"), and others are used rarely.

Seven Minute Lull: He discussed this in a segment about life's little moments. "Right! I know! I know! Well, what I'm gonna do, I'm gonna have my testicles laminated!"

Signature Style: Like the old adage goes, often imitated but seldom bettered.

Many of his most famous bits involve a Long List that slowly gets faster and faster as he says it—see "Seven Dirty Words" "Baseball vs. Football" and the end of his rant on "stuff" for examples.

Silly Walk: Occasionally to mock the struts of the self-important, but Carlin on Campus had several choice absurdities that stood up all on their own.

Sometimes, I go like this. (strikes an awkward pose) And then I wonder why.

Smite Me, O Mighty Smiter!: As a part of his routine, he challenged God to strike the audience, then him to death to prove that He exists.

Society Marches On: Carlin's first two HBO specials had an HBO representative warning viewers that Carlin was going to use naughty language. This, despite HBO being a premium cable service.

In 1990's Doin' It Again, George is greeted by dog pound calls, which was popularized by the brief late night show hosted by Arsenio Hall.

Sophisticated as Hell: He used profanity in his routines, but it was always carefully placed for maximum impact. Overall he was quite eloquent and intelligent, but the juxtaposition of intelligent thought and vulgarity certainly resulted in plenty of this trope.

That Came Out Wrong: But he was always witty enough to run with it, improvise a joke out of his mistakes. Quite possibly the best example, from It's Bad For Ya, when talking about the perks of getting old:

You can even shit your pants! Haven't tried it yet...but I don't rule it out! I'm keeping my options open. Everything is on the table! [beat] ... Perhaps that's not the figure of speech I wanted...

On violent human behavior:

Jeffrey Dahmer never thought of this shit, did he? Jeffrey Dahmer, eat your heart out! ... which is an interesting thought in and of itself...

From Playing with Your Head:

So I took the earring out and my hole grew over. (Beat) My earring hole. Hey. Hey! My asshole didn't grow over. What are you, crazy? Get out of here! No, your asshole grows over, you may as well check straight into a cemetery. 'Cause you're going to spend a lot of time walking around the beach wondering why you're getting larger all of a sudden.

Drop the Cow: In Complaints and Grievances, he decided to change the subject when he sensed one of his routines was going south fast. He realised that having many sketches ready to go to avoid corpsing onstage is an important part of being a comedian.

In the end, he decrees that one of the nowTwoCommandments is that "thou shalt try real hard not to kill anyone, unless they pray to a different invisible man from the one you pray to."

Toilet Humor: Not above it. In one show, he said he gave his dog some Cracker Jacks. Later, when he took him outside, "Tippy took a Cracker Jack." (He was anxious to see what the prize was, hoping it wasn't something like a blow whistle.)

Troll: "Keeping People Alert," from 1988's What Am I Doing in New Jersey?, is a collection of absurd suggestions of ways, to keep people on their toes. "Or just walk up to somebody in the street and say: 'Pardon me, I have nothing to say!'" is just the beginning.

Viewers Are Morons: Most of his comedy was very erudite, but he did like pointing out ignorance, sometimes even within his own audience.

Vulgar Humor: He once deconstructed the anatomy of his jokes, and said that one or both of these tropes were parts of the necessary exaggeration, that made the jokes funny, rather than just shocking. Knowing just how far to push was his specialty.

Wham Line: In Doin' It Again, he has a minute and a half rant that demonstrates how "soft" language has gotten, in which he explains a combat condition that was called "Shell Shock", renamed "Battle Fatigue", then "Operational Exhaustion", and finally "Post-traumatic Stress Disorder." An audible murmur ripples through the crowd at that point when they suddenly realize what he's been talking about. When Carlin remarks that the returning Vietnam War veterans might have gotten the attention they needed if they were still calling it "Shell Shock", the audience erupts with applause.

Worthy Opponent: In Last Words, he mentions that his first solo album was nominated for a Grammy, but lost to Bill Cosby, who he considered a worthy opponent.

You Bastard: Was not afraid to slam on various groups and interests he hated, and would actually tell his audience the comedic equivalent to this, if they actually were this. Most of the audience lapped it up, even if THEY were the target.

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